That Dam Project: Labrador Land Protectors refuse to end the fight

A mosaic, as seen outside of the Labrador Friendship Centre in Happy Valley-Goose Bay in August 2017. - Ashley Fitzpatrick

Say they’ll continue to pursue an end to the damming at Muskrat Falls

It's a quiet room in the Labrador Friendship Centre, with photos of generations past looking down on the sharing circle. The gathering has deep meaning, but practically speaking involves a circle of chairs and a chance for everyone to say their piece.

In this case, the meeting is about Muskrat Falls.

The people here speak, always, as if the Muskrat Falls hydro dam can still be done away with.

It's a late August night and raining outside. Inside the centre, about 45 kilometres away from Muskrat Falls, you can almost see the blood pounding in Kirk Lethbridge. He leans forward in a seat that will get stacked before we leave, repeating the same points he's made 100 times over to people not from the area — likely more, given the years.

His voice is a notch above average speed and volume, but remains controlled. It's powerful and direct as his hands hammer out the comments.

"I don't know the words to tell you how wrong this feels." — Kirk Lethbridge

Everyone here has heard these things before, but they're still relevant.

“If I toxified one-third of the Avalon, what would happen to me? If I toxified 500 square yards of the Avalon Peninsula, what would happen to me? I'd be charged,” he says.

He's referring to expected methylmercury contamination of wild foods — fish, seals — consumed by the people of the Lower Churchill River and Lake Melville. The project is, at this point, in an awkward phase of partial flooding, limiting the methylmercury release, but the expectation here is that consumption advisories will come and there will be a choice between safety and long-challenged livelihoods and traditions.

The idea causes particular pain for the Indigenous people of the area. A study focused on the Inuit of Nunatsiavut, led by a team out of Harvard University, stated that people in communities far from the dam site were at a greater risk than was previously publicly discussed, based on human health study factoring in the unique characteristics of the Lake Melville estuary.

Lethbridge was one of the protesters who was, in part, fuelled by these findings and entered the main Muskrat Falls construction site in October 2016, taking part in a sit-in. He acted as spokesman for the group in communications with the company and responding RCMP.

He doesn't describe the protest event as a success. He doesn't feel like the group was really heard, or that political leaders and the people of the province really responded.

He hasn't heard much from the Independent Experts Advisory Panel on methylmercury. Its creation ended the on-site protest, but he says people have heard little since.

“I don't know the words to tell you how wrong this feels,” he says.

The Commission of Inquiry beginning in 2018 may not lay blame, even for the project's blown budget and timeline, but Lethbridge isn't as concerned with budget and timeline as much as he is with what has happened since the project was green lit.

He suggests there's plenty of blame to go around on the sanctioning of Muskrat Falls and what it means for people living closest to it. He thinks the sanctioning was simply wrong.

“I think the media has fallen down on the job. A lot of the media has,” he says.

He doesn't understand how more hasn't been said, for example, about the mass of RCMP officers and private security that descended on the area, down to the presence of police dogs.

And he and others have been subjected to court date after court date. At this point he feels the justice system was used strategically by the corporation, encouraged by the provincial government, to quell the wave of objections to the dam in the wake of the methylmercury study.

He asks: “Where is the outrage from the Canadian people?”

Peggy Blake

Peggy Blake

“We're raising money every which way we can for our lawyer,” says Peggy Blake.

Soft-spoken, she seems uncomfortable sharing her thoughts and might have stopped, but has protection against interruption and judgement offered by the circle.

Methylmercury is on her mind, too, and a feeling of dismissal, being seen as a “naysayer” or “critic.”

“We fish these waters all the time. We've grown up fishing these waters. That's our life and … they just come in and take it from us,” she said.

She mentions concerns over flooding — a breach in the dam, the loss of a section of the North Spur, a piece of land being incorporated into the dam development.

Blake simply doesn't believe the company when they say it is safe. She's hasn't heard from anyone else with any degree of certainty.

Her husband sits behind her. He is no less frustrated and nods in agreement when it's said the group has come to rely on each other to get information, to determine the facts as best they can.

No one in government outside of the Land Protectors has been able to convince them they really care — about neighbours sleeping with life-jackets under their beds (they remain convinced it's necessary) or about the expectation that activities like fishing for food will be forbidden.

“As long as they're out there continuing on, we're going to be standing right here against them,” she says, confirming that will continue even beyond construction.

“We're going to stand our ground and yes, we're going to continue. ... This is our home. This is our culture. This is our life. This is everything to us. They can't see that. They can't see this is who we are and we're not going anywhere.”

Denise Cole

Denise Cole

There's rhythm in the speech of Denise Cole, who has become a recognizable face for the Labrador Land Protectors group.

Travelling between St. John's and Happy Valley-Goose Bay, she has been able to promote talks and organize demonstrations, adding to her initial objections to the project going back to the provincial-federal Joint Review Panel more than six years ago.

“You look right across Canada and these hydro dams are showing up and it's the same. It's not a private company driving them, it's Crown corporations that are backed by provinces and they're backed by the feds. The feds do it in two ways: loan guarantees and permits,” she says.

Cole learned about the project's environmental assessment while in her former job, promoting the direct participation of women in resource development. She decided in good conscience she had to speak up against the development.

Muskrat Falls is a development for somebody, she says, but not the people in the area. They don't need the power — something she communicates on social media and in active events taking up much of her time outside of work for years now.

Among other things, she doesn't think people are looking beyond the idea of lost country foods, even for a time, to fewer trips out onto into the great outdoors, detrimental changes in diets, even disruption in people's sense of identity, all contributing to health concerns.

She believes it should be enough for this development to never have happened.

As for the response that comes?

“It's this pass the blame game,” she says.

She doesn't believe an inquiry will address the concerns of the area, as people here are perpetually in minority to the interests of the province as a whole.

“(And) what does that mean? What is the result of said inquiry? What is the actual consequence to action? Sure to God it can't just be the leader comes in and says an apology,” she says.

Without trust, no place to start

The bottom line is that while many members of the Labrador Land Protectors never began as being anti-Muskrat Falls, they've reached a point where they can't imagine being anything else.

Since the August sharing circle, Land Protectors have demonstrated at Memorial University of Newfoundland's main campus and at Nalcor Energy's headquarters at Hydro Place in St. John's, with the latter leading to a similar sharing of concerns with Nalcor Energy president and CEO Stan Marshall and senior Nalcor Energy staff on Nov. 29.

On Dec. 14, a post to the Labrador Land Protectors Facebook page referenced the fears of downstream flooding, and the flooding in Mud Lake that destroyed property and forced emergency evacuation earlier this year. A third-party investigation — with a report released in early October — found that flooding was the result of natural causes and not the dam construction.

“Nalcor may say it's not their fault,” the post stated. “We know better than that.”